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| She loves to stand! Can't get up on her own yet, but will sometimes fight us when we try to sit her - stiffening her legs and refusing to let her butt down on the floor. Then she'll gesture with her feet suggesting to us that she wants to walk. One of her seemingly favorite things to do is walk over to Jameson who will wait on the other side of the room. She loves being rewarded with a big "gentle" hug from him. (I'll have to get a pic or video of that soon!) |
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| I was itching to go into the mountains, but the weather was so much cooler there (while a sunny 75F in Fort Collins), so we expanded our possible destinations to include heading down to Colorado Springs to visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. It is actually built on the mountain - so cool! While it was a bit overcast, it made for a very comfortable afternoon. |
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| Feeding the giraffes is definitely another highlight of the zoo. Can you believe that tongue!?! It freaked me out... |
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| But not Jameson :) |
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| Watching the lions. |
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| I swear there is glass between Jameson and the big CAT!! |
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| That's one dirty bath! |
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| The zoo is situated up on the side of a mountain and winds through a series of switchbacks as you make your way up to different exhibits. We saw giraffes, hippos, elephants, lions, bears, snakes, rhinos, seals, monkeys...Can't believe that I only recently found out about this zoo through some friends. |
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| Jameson's first carousel ride. He's excited (I promise), but in a coma from having just eaten lunch. |
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| On the move and hanging on tight (both of us!). |
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| Ava did so well this trip :) There were some rough patches during the car rides to/from the Springs, but isn't that to be expected? After leaving the zoo, I said to Rob "what a successful trip!" (He tends to be the more skeptical one about traveling anywhere further than an hour away.) He was quiet and then explained that there were a few times during the day when he thought to himself "this is NOT fun". I explained that the kids had fun, we got to explore a new place, no one blew out of a diaper, no one got really messy, no one got hurt and Jameson never threw one tantrum! Want to know what he said back? - "You have low standards." I'm so used to it being 2 (kids) on 1 (me) that 2 on 2 was so much more relaxing. We laughed and agreed that it's a matter of perspective ;) |
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| Oh yeah, daddy made it in there too for a fun underwater viewing of the seals. |
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| Looks like Rob is having fun here...hmmm ;) |
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| See you on the other side :) |
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| For a few months, I've been wanting to post some tidbits on what Jameson is like at two. Trying to get the perfect pic of him these days is near impossible, so here are some random ones from my phone that I've been able to sneak. This one is from an afternoon that I put him in the car (front passenger seat) while I loaded it up with things from inside the house. I came back out to load the car and heard music...hmmmm, then saw his head peering out over the wheel. He had pressed the start engine button (thank God he can't reach the brake pedal!), turned on the radio and started playing with all the buttons and dials as he pretended to drive jamming to the music bobbing his head up and down and everything! I started laughing hysterically and then almost peed my pants when he got the windshield wipers to move and freaked himself out (literally, he jumped back in the seat!). (This pic reminds me of the photo I took of him behind the wheel at around 5 months, some things don't change.) |
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| He loves chocolate and "m's". The combo, however, is difficult for a toddler to manage because (lesson #1) it leads to brain freeze. He didn't want anymore of his frozen yogurt after biting into a big spoonful of it, leaving a dish of melting yogurt that we could not take home to save for later. Always remember that a mother should follow her instinct (lesson #2). Despite him agreeing that I could throw it out, I considered waiting to do so until once we'd left and he couldn't see it anymore, but alas I tossed right then and there. Oh, BIG mistake! Toddler meltdown (no pun intended!) in the frozen yogurt shop surrounded by happy people on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. This triggered Ava to meltdown and neither child was yet in the stroller. It made for a long walk/ride back to the house!!! |
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| Picnic lunch at the park. We love doing these, but it was still so early in the season that the grass was loaded with goose poop - yuck! Jameson's dream came true - a picnic lunch on the basketball court! I'm honestly confused as to why he has tears in the picture. Being that he's two, the tears could be from anything anyone reading this blog could dream up - the sky's the limit! |
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| Still such a good eater. Love our playdates because he gets introduced to so many new things. Here he's enjoying homemade miso soup with tofu and seaweed!!!! Impressive. On a weird note, he doesn't like rice. I think it's a texture thing. |
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| Goofy boy. The other day I called Jameson "J-man" - a common nickname that we've used since he was born. Well, he turned to me and said "I'm not a man." |
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| Talking to Emma through the screen. |
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| He found his first egg! |
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| Looks like the Easter Bunny is hoping Jameson's ball interests will expand these summer months to include baseball :) |
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| Yummy jelly beans and bunny cookies inside those eggs - they didn't last long! |
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| Easter afternoon, we enjoyed a cookout with friends. Here's Jameson pretending he's one of the BIG boys. A couple of weeks after this, Jameson was doing something (I can't remember what), but randomly said "I'm big like Evan." and then later that day, "I'm fast like Evan." Evan is our friend in the yellow :) It's so much fun hearing the different things that Jameson says at this age. So many times he'll say something and Rob and I just look at each other shocked at what we've heard because we haven't heard him use that vocabulary, or known that he grasped such things. |
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| All the boys. Jameson and Finn (far left) are within a month of the same age. |
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| Ava's first Easter :) |
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| Eating cereal for the first time. She's now sleeping even longer at night, as we'd predicted...yay! |
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| Ava is one messy eater! She immediately puts her hands in her mouth after getting a bite of food and then moves those hands all over the place. I'm not looking forward to seeing how she later feeds herself (we've been pretty fortunate with Jameson)!!! BTW that tuft of hair is something special (hey, some babies are bald) :) |
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| Ava's eating all kinds of yummy foods...cereal, pumpkin, apple, banana, mango, kale, spinach, blueberry, yogurt, peas and PEANUT BUTTER...so many fruits, veggies, cereal and yogurt - just no minced meat yet. Regarding that peanut butter, we had Ava tested for food allergies, some precautionary testing in response to Jameson's allergies. Hooray! She was cleared and we've been instructed to start feeding her peanut butter on a daily basis which research (640 "high risk" babies, 5 year longitudinal study showed a drastic reduction in peanut allergies if fed 4tsp peanut butter/week from ages 4-11mo) now suggests minimizes the risk of developing an allergy. Fingers crossed she stays allergy-free! |
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| Happy smiley baby :) |
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| Starting to teethe. It's now our go-to explanation when we can't seem to calm her, which luckily is pretty unusual. She's putting everything in her mouth these days. |
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| One of the few photos of her "happy" on her tummy. If she rolls over in her sleep, it tends to wake her up and leads to crying. |
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| We're still not sure what color to call her hair. Jameson's changed to blonde around 10 months, but still looked reddish depending on the lighting. We'll wait and see what happens with Ava's, but for now it's definitely not blonde! |
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| At 5 months old, Ava was finally in her own bedroom and sleeping better at night. Rob and I were sleeping better at night, too! The early mornings, however, proved more difficult. With transitioning Ava into her own room, it necessitated transitioning Jameson out of the crib and into a big boy bed (double sized mattress and box spring on the floor). While getting Jameson down at bedtime seemed almost too easy, his early rising was the opposite. It would take Jameson about 5 weeks to move his rising time from 5am to 7am. With being in her own room, Ava still occasionally needed two feedings (midnight and 4ish), but she had a similar bedtime and morning wake time as Jameson (7pm-7am). We looked forward to Ava's sleep times improving even more upon adding solids at 6 months. |
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| Ava's getting stronger and stronger, but still doesn't like tummy time or rolling over. She enjoys her brother coming over and giving her his attention and he loves her reactions! |
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| Finally, getting to enjoy something together! |
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| Ava's first park swing ride (the day after turning 5mo old). I had to secure her in/prop her up with the help of a blanket, but it worked. I feel so fortunate to be able to go outside and enjoy the fresh Colorado air in February! The kids and I had a fun park date and also went to visit the petting farm this same day. |
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| Big brother happily looking on and watching his little sister (you can see her shadow in the picture). |
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| Now for the story behind the unknowingly even more than obvious perfect gift from Ava's Godmother.... |
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| I figured Aunt Karen gave this gift because of already knowing the story
behind it, but she didn't. All she knew was the perfect coincidence of
name (as she happened to pass the shop on a side road while heading to a wedding in a nearby town). This is what I shared with her in an email after we received the
gift..."The first time my parents met yours they traveled out to the
east
coast and stayed at a place in Peterborough, NH. Winter of 2006/2007, I
think. We ended up touring around the town and saw the chocolate
shop. I was drawn to it because I've always liked the name Ava, and
with my middle name being Marie we thought it was just too cute. My mom
and Rob knew that I was in love with the name. The shop was really
"sweet" :) Then, in the summer/fall of 2008, after we were married and
moved to Colorado, my mom saw an article on the chocolate shop in a
magazine at the doctor's office (if you can believe it!). She pulled
out the article and mailed it to me, which I've kept for all these years
:) And, that's the story of how in at least one way I knew we were destined to have a little girl :)" |
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| Our "sweetie" |